Dear Teacher Stuck in the Middle,
In a job interview I was once asked my birth order. I stumbled over the question and laughed at myself because I really didn't know how to answer. I have an older brother and an identical twin sister. I am forty-one-minutes older than my twin sister, which technically makes me a middle child.
I've never thought of myself as a middle child, but something I have thought about often is the forty-one minute time lapse between my entrance on the planet and my sister's debut. I had a whole forty-one minute life on earth without her. It was wild.
I also think about my poor Momma. Over a half an hour in labor is a long time to be in transition.
An agonizing birth story might be a foreign notion for most, but maybe, the concept of being stuck in the middle is not.
It's December, which to a school teacher means first semester is almost finished. In a few weeks, second semester will make her debut. We're right smack dab in the middle. There are also many teachers positioned in the middle of their careers. Some of these teachers are asking themselves if they want to keep doing this for the long haul.
The questioning is understandable, especially after the unbearable demands of this year. These seasoned teachers have been teaching long enough that the luster of changing the world is no longer shiny, but they haven't been teaching so long that the retirement finish line is visible.
Whether birth order, school year, marriage, or career, the middle can be a tough lot in life.
But there's also something magical about being squeezed in the middle seat of life. Yes, it's tight, but it also becomes a place of waiting and trust.
You aren't the first. You aren't the last, but you're still growing, learning, evolving, and each payment is dwindling down the principal of debt that will lead to a culmination of a beautiful new life to hold and cherish, a life that can only happen through the pain of stretching.
Yes, it's uncomfortable and a little boring at times, but try to be patient in the waiting because the best part of the story is buried in the mundane, the chasm between where you are and where you want to be.
As an avid reader for most of my adult life, I can attest that the beginning of a story grabs your attention, the ending dazzles you, but the middle is where you fall in love with the message.
There are still a lot of pages to be written in your life, so don't rush the development trying to get to the end.
In "The Birthmark," one of my favorite short stories, Nathaniel Hawthorne penned this beautiful ending line regarding the tragic death of the main character's beautiful wife.
"He failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time to find the perfect future in the present."
I have read this story at least 50 times with students through the years. Each time the sadness overwhelms me anew as I consider how guilty I am at wishing away the best parts of my life. I always urged my students to live in the moment and not waste away their lives waiting on a better part to come along.
Sadly, I wasn't always skilled at heeding to the advice I so generously doled out each year.
Even now, I can hear the reverberating echo of my own voice.
"The best part has always been the middle (the present), don't you see it?"
-CDB